Known in the art are OD (outer diameter) blade cutting wheels comprising a cemented carbide base having an outer periphery to which diamond and/or cBN abrasive grains are bonded with phenolic resins or metal plating. The sawing process using such cutting wheels is regarded very useful in the industry because of many advantages including the low price of the cutting tool, a relatively small cutting allowance, a good dimensional accuracy of cut pieces, and a relatively high machining speed. Since the cutting wheels are best suited for sawing of rare earth sintered magnet blocks (or permanent magnet blocks) which are hard and brittle, they are widely used in the art.